You may recall that some days ago I explained why Romney is losing, and noted that, in interviews in battleground states, I’d almost never met anyone who said they really, really liked the guy. Most of the pro-Romney energy was really anti-Obama fervor. Romney was acceptable but, for many GOP voters, not the ideal candidate. So I posted that item, flew to Wisconsin, went to a Polish restaurant and the very first person I interviewed said of Romney, “I think he’s a genius.” The point being that this is not an exact science.

That goes for polling, too. The latest news is that Obama did so badly in the debate that he is suddenly losing the election and is in the midst of a historic collapse. This is, we are told, the worst thing since the Joe Pisarcik fumble.

“I’ve never seen a candidate this late in the game, so far ahead, just throw in the towel in the way Obama did last week - throw away almost every single advantage he had with voters and manage to enable his opponent to seem as if he cares about the middle class as much as Obama does. How do you erase that imprinted first image from public consciousness: a president incapable of making a single argument or even a halfway decent closing statement?”

In my interviews I haven’t seen a lot of volatility out there. One woman — exactly one, total — told me that she and her husband were reconsidering their vote after watching the debate. They had been leaning Obama. They were now undecided, she said. Everyone else I talked to said the debate wouldn’t change their vote.

This could also be a bounce that, like other bounces, goes away after a week or so. Or it could be that Romney continues to see improvements in his poll numbers, and in a week or so the whole electoral map will be upside down, with Romney in clear command. Here’s an idea: Let’s wait and see.

What’s certain is that with his debate performance Romney managed in a single night to shore up enthusiasm in his base, and persuade a number of ”persuadables” that he’s not Thurston Howell Romney III. He was losing, as I said, because you don’t become president of the United States simply by saying the other guy is a doofus. You have to make people like you. This is a country where a lot of people vote not for the party or for the policy but for the person. Likeability matters a lot.

I’ll say it again: It’s going to be close, and probably come down to the usual suspects, Ohio and Florida. If you look at the realclearpolitics electoral map you can see all the different ways this might play out. Right now the map shows Obama with 251 electoral votes from strong, likely or leaning states, and Romney with 181. Another 106 electoral votes are in states labeled tossups. So let’s give all those tossup states to Romney, except Ohio, where Obama has been leading.